Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 465 Shut Up, I'm Thinking
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Does the Emperor love us?

This was a question that Samokan had never actually thought too deeply about.

In the short life of this barbarian child, there was no need to think about the nature of such a difficult problem. The hardships of the life in front of him were enough to occupy most of the energy and thinking space in his mind.

The Emperor loves His people, He loves humanity.

We are human beings, we are His people.

Therefore the Emperor loves us.

Everybody said it, the priests said it, the officers said it, my father said it when he left home.

He said the Emperor loves us and He will protect him.

This is what Samokan's mother said when she cried, prayed, and finally decided to send him to Chutsugu Academy.

After leaving his hometown, witnessing countless separations and deaths, and realizing how he had lived in ignorance, a life that seemed hard at the time but was actually so peaceful and happy, and now that he is almost facing a living purgatory from being displaced, something finally began to touch his childish thoughts and accelerated the formation of his synapses.

Samokan's mind - the rosary beads around his neck that always pulled at his thread of perception of reality, or the gift of genetic material from another powerful warrior, Uriel Ventris, who was over two hundred years old, and the mixed gene-seed of the Fourth and Seventh Legions, or perhaps it was the burning voice in his heart that hissed like a snake to give him timely help - finally began, unfortunately, prematurely, but fortunately, like a new sprout breaking through the last layer of frozen soil, to uncontrollably produce more thoughts about all the things he had been told and knew so far that he thought were truths.

+They're in pain. They're hungry.+
+I know.+
"Your pain...is mainly due to the lack of skin?"

The King of the Skinless nodded, then shook his head. Its sharp, dirty huge claws raised up and carefully stroked Samokwan's translucent demon skin, the muscles flowing with silver warp energy were still faintly visible underneath.

"Emperor, Emperor, we pray that he loves us. As long as he loves us in heaven, we can sleep down there even if it hurts, sleep."

"The Emperor loves you. The Emperor loves all of His children." Uriel withdrew his gaze from the huge metal statue with a compassionate attitude. Hearing these words, his answer almost came out of his mouth, and then he seemed to be silent as if he was frightened by his own words.

+He lied to them.+
+Then how do I know that what you said is true? +
+You don't trust me enough. +
+You speak as if you can be trusted. I can think for myself. +
The Skinless King's reptilian yellow eyes turned towards the speaker, and a huge, skinless worm-like tongue poked out from his fanged mouth and wrapped around the former Ultramarines' neck. Sticky saliva dripped from it, and Uriel felt a tingling sensation on his skin - although the Skinless's saliva was not as acidic as that of the Space Marines, it clearly had some digestive and corrosive function. He stopped his companion's actions, stood where he was, and endured the touch of the other's tongue.

"You do have the same taste as when we were dropped, but you have skin, why?" A look of suspicion and greed rose from the bloody skull-like face, "Are you sent by Iron Man? Are you pampered? Lie? Cheated us? We have eaten this before. Bones, crunchy, meat, fresh, juicy."

"Oh throne, I don't want to know such details, it's disgusting." Pasanius whispered.

"You said the Emperor loves us. Does the Emperor really love us?" The Skinless King asked further, with a longing look that was completely inconsistent with his height and terrifying appearance.

Uriel and Samokan, one being the elder and the other being the same age, realized it almost at the same time.

Although they are such a group of weird and low-intelligence failures, mutants and man-eating monsters, who have escaped the sharp blades and suffocation of the sewers, and have been wandering under the strange sky of Medlengard for an unknown period of time, relying on such horrible hunting for a living, they are human beings, they are children, a group of helpless, helping each other children, and beneath what they have lost by those Chaos Iron Warriors and barbaric undertakers, they still have a trace of the deepest desire.

Longing for love, longing to be forgiven, longing for comfort and peace.

Under this ugly shape and deformed power, the child was taken away from his parents and forced to suffer pain and strength that he should not have.

"Yes, the Emperor loves you..." "The Emperor will not love you."

Uriel looked at Samokwan in shock, as the form of the winged lifeless being began to become more apparent on his body.

The Skinless cried out in anger and sorrow, "Bad guys! Bad guys! Iron Man's favorites! Eat them! Eat them!"

The mutated monsters here seemed to be further agitated by these hurtful words, and several of them had already stood up and rushed towards them - each aberration was as big as a dreadnought, and when they charged, the ground here vibrated, and the statue of Mercy suspended in the air by thick rusty chains swayed gently, as if sadly and futilely soothing the fierce bloodshed that was about to take place below.

"Look at what you are like now--!"

The outer hooves of his demon skin slammed on the uneven ground like his combat boots. Samokan took a step forward and ignored the monsters rushing towards him. Instead, he raised his arms and shouted at the group of people with more confidence, "Are you willing to hide like this? Are you willing to spend your whole life begging for love that may come at any time? How long can your leader protect you? Do you want to live?! Then where is your hope?! Who will love monsters like you who don't even have skin or a face?!"

"Samokuan, what are you doing...!" Pasanius shouted, and Uriel stared at the boy with a frown. He saw that the rosary was still tightly wrapped around the skinless neck, emitting the faint light that had helped them pass through the tunnel before.

"You, don't understand anything!" The King of the Skinless also roared. Compared with his tribe members who depended on each other for survival, as the biggest and smartest one, he was undoubtedly the most hurt by this sentence. "You! Traitor! You didn't have skin in the first place! Why did you grow it! Why did you grow this skin!"

His sharp claws grabbed Samokan's shoulders, and even the demon skin began to grow illusory and solid armor. Uriel saw with a chill all over his body that, although there were many more scales and sharp teeth than he knew, the style of that armor was what a Space Marine could distinguish through his training: an old and badly damaged Mark IV, with a faint red paint coating - whose power armor was this?

"Want it?"

Storm's grey eyes met yellow ones through the eyes on the illusory demon skull visor.

The other party stared at him, suddenly realizing what this strange being was promising them.

"Want skin? Skin like mine? With skin, you can get love. Love, for strong children who can be confident and strong enough to stand in front of the world."

The King of the Skinless howled, and suddenly stretched out his arms, knocking down with one claw the first of his kind that had rushed towards Samokwan and was about to attack, causing the latter to have a bloody head. However, the latter did not seem to feel the pain, and just rolled over in confusion and surrendered to the leader's sudden attack.

Then their cries rose and fell, echoing in the abandoned mine factory, as if they were communicating in a more primitive and animalistic language. The holy statue called the Emperor by the Skinless was clad in dull bronze armor, and the metal wings spread out behind it flashed slightly in the pale light.

Uriel slowly approached Samokwan.

"With a new skin, can we earn the Emperor's love?"

Finally, when the howling finally stopped, the King of the Skinless once again stared at the boy in the demon skin and ancient broken power armor, "Does the Emperor love you? Did he tell you to give us the skin first?"

The former Ultramarines were already standing to the left and right of Samokan.

+Have you learned to lie, kid? I am relieved. +
+Shut up, I'm not lying. I'm thinking. +
"I don't know if the Emperor loves me or not. I haven't felt it. Maybe he has his reasons, or maybe he really can't hear the prayers here." The yellow eyes narrowed dangerously. "But from what I have seen, I think you have a more genuine devotion to the Emperor than anyone else. Such sincerity is commendable, but Soltarn has told me more than once what his father said. He said that if you want others to love you, you must first love yourself." He raised his head, "Come with me. You can't go on like this. Come with me, I will get you food. Next, skin is just the first step."

"You have no love from the Emperor! You are playing tricks on us!"

The beast roared in anger, "We want love! Emperor! Love! Mercy! Love!"

"Then why don't you look at the mess you've made! You know it yourself! Why are you being so stubborn?! Who would love a sloppy person like you who eats garbage?! How old are you?!"

The last sentence had a power beyond Uriel and Pasanius's expectations. It froze the huge monster in its place. Finally, it said hesitantly, "...Ten years old...? I don't know. I don't know how long I slept in the Iron Man's castle."

"Are you the oldest here?"

"Me? I don't know. But there shouldn't be anyone older than me?"

"So, I'm almost thirteen years old!" The boy with a huge demon appearance puffed out his chest proudly, "As a person without skin, I'm older than you! I'm stronger than you, and I know more. I know how to help you get skin - it won't hurt if you have skin! You decide whether you should listen to me!"

+…I don’t know what to say about this. +
+Shut up. Boys have their own way of dealing with things! +
+Okay. As you wish.+
The King of the Skinless pondered. This beast was indeed intelligent.

he said at last.

"I want to make sure you can protect us! Protect the tribe! Not trick us into going out to eat!"

"Tell me, how do you want to be sure?"

The fleshless claws were raised, pointing at the holy statue that had been looking down at them in the dark sky until now.

"Let the Emperor be sure. He will make His decision. Lie and you die. Truth and you live."

"..."

+You see, he doesn't make any sense. It's better to kill all those who don't obey. +
+Shut up. I'm taking them all out, not killing them.+
+I remind you, kid, the two lackeys of the cursed behind you have been staring at your vitals for a long time. +
+I know.+
+Your guardian also looks like a lackey of the cursed. Do you really believe that he will accept you and them? +
+This has nothing to do with you. You promised me before, lend me enough strength to deal with this. +
He strode up to the icon, the featureless head hanging down in pity from the dust and oil-stained metal, looking at the boy in the skin of a demon, who was part Space Marine but not completely human.

Samokan didn't know what to do, so he stretched out his hand toward the icon.

+Hmph.+
The strange broadsword that had appeared in his hand before appeared in his hand again in its entirety, more complete and detailed than ever before, and seemed to be made almost entirely of metal.

The owner of the voice sank into his soul with resentment, and with it a new combat skill and experience in how to wield this strange double-edged broadsword surged into his limbs.

The boy tried his first proper swing of the broadsword and his thumb found a switch.

"Om."

"Throne, Uriel, there it is!" Pasanius prayed in a low voice.

In a cave full of skinless beings staring at them with sparkling eyes, the ancient power blade lit up with the blue light of the opened field.

Yellow eyes glared at it.

Intuition allowed Samokan to seize the opportunity.

"Look! The Emperor loves me!"

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"You can't... you can't let him go like this!" Lieutenant Colonel Yolan took a step forward, and the deep hatred in his voice could no longer be concealed by other excuses.

"My agreement to serve you is to kill our enemy! Kill him!"

Others looked in amazement at this audacious mortal, but some of them looked unsurprised.

"Oh." The white-haired wizard lord shrugged, not really caring.

Now, after Thortann successfully used the custom-made power armor suit given by his father to beat up Tolamino, who had not given up and attacked the old stonemason in an attempt to obtain his father's location information from him, he brought Grendel and the wizard Iron Warrior, who were looking forward to the show, through the front lines of the two warring parties who had stopped fighting due to surprise and new orders, and returned to the command center, and began to announce to everyone that the Chaos Lord decided to "turn to the light" and "turn over a new leaf" - even though the person involved still looked very suspicious.

Lieutenant Colonel Leonid of the 383rd Yolan Dragoon Regiment was unexpectedly the first to oppose such an easy victory.

Tolamino didn't care much about the undisguised hostility of others here - haven't the Iron Warriors been trapped on this small planet for ten thousand years and there have been many betrayals, fights and annexations? Isn't it just fighting while guarding against being backstabbed by friendly forces? He is very familiar with this. Any noble who grew up in the city-state of Rokos in Olympia is not unfamiliar with this skill. But he still asked.

"Being hated by a tiny mortal is nothing to be remembered for, but why do you want my life?"

"The Heart of the Hydra." Leonid hissed, "All the attackers at that time died except the Lord of Kalan-Gol. Our final mission was to protect the seeds, and you stole the important seeds from Captain Eshara and his men."

"What does that have to do with me?" Tolamino shrugged cunningly. "It was Barban Falk and Honso who attacked the Heart of Hydra. I only seized this fortress afterwards. Your hatred should be directed at them. If you must tell me who led the attack, it was Barban Falk."

The Yoran stood there with bloodshot eyes, "Barban Falk. Is that the name of the warsmith?"

"Yes." Tolamino sneered. "Why? What did he do to you?"

"He owes us a final mission." The lieutenant colonel whispered, "The final mission Captain Eshara entrusted to us."

(End of this chapter)